A point cloud is a set of points in a three-dimensional coordinate system. In general, a point cloud is a three-dimensional model of a location. In geographic information systems, for example, point clouds are used to make digital elevation models of the terrain, or to generate three-dimensional models of, for instance, an urban environment.
Point clouds can be formed by combining two-dimensional images captured from two or more perspectives. Point cloud generation from passive imagery can, however, be a computationally expensive and time consuming process.